Memoirs of a RAFian

[redtailedsaffa]

It gets crazier as the books go up.

[Cloak]

They also get more and more interlinked. I think.

. . .

Crazier in a good way, right?

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
A Call for Practicality

"They are deliberately slowing down, I swear." Saffa pointed out, looking over her shoulder. They were going with the plan of allowing Regifloras to think that he was herding them, when they would double back around or something. They hadn't gone into specifics. "They are herding us."

"But why? Why does Regifloras intend for us to go to this place, wherever and whatever it is?" Blue pondered aloud pensively. "Does he just get off on toying around with us?"

Suddenly, the corridor widened into a nexus of four further ongoing passages and corridors. Each was curving in a different direction, two curved right and the rest curved left. Earthsight here was as possible as hearing a person whisper behind a jet engine.

"Which way?" Demos asked.

"Can't Earthsight. Too much interference." Cloak said. "I wish that Airsight was a thing."

"Well, maybe we can divine the right way to go, not the way that he wants us to go. The whole brute force plan won't work now." Phoenix said. "I admit it wasn't much of a plan to begin with."

"It was all we had at the time. We have virtually no stealth options, and there is no reasoning with him -- or else Saffa would have already succeeded." Blue said. "But which way is the right way to go?"

"I'm on it," Parker said, using his armor's tech and Tyr to try to calculate the best direction to go.

Saffa watchedd this benignly, "Uh, boys? Why do we need to go in a direction at all?"

"What?" Cloak said.

Saffa sighed, which sound remarkably to an exasperated, "Boys."

"What?" Parker asked.

"This isn't a linear video game," Saffa pointed out. "We're not bound by the invisible walls of a level map, we can move outside of that map."

Cloak blinked in realization as Demos said, "Huh?"

"She means we do not have to play this by Regifloras's rules. We do not have to pick a passageway at all. We can go our own path, one of own making." Cloak attempted to explain. "We are not relegated by programmed perimeters."

"Or we could just fly out the top of the maze," Saffa said, bluntly. "C'mon, guys! It doesn't even have a ceiling!"

After a rather awkward silence, they flew up from the maze encased in one of Cloak's energy bubbles.

[redtailedsaffa]

I LOLed.

[Cloak]

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Motivation

"These RAFians," Regifloras said, irritatedly. He stood in the overgrown RAF, examining and appraising the RAFians within the eggplant structures. He had seen and heard what had happened via the vine-drones and the thorny vines themselves. "These creatures of flesh . . ."

He eyed the robotic RAFians, like Rocklobster, Sakki, etc., with sneering disgust, curling his lip.
"And their . . . contraptions . . . they will make marvelous drones, but they chose to ignore the rules dictated to them by the superior being. They struggle to allow their arrogant continuation to poison this world's waters, skies and lands."

It wasn't true, of course.

"They were entertaining, except the Infernal One, for a time." he said, continuing to examine the eggplant pods, in which each RAFian was curled up in a fetal position -- unconscious, thoughtless, and dreamlessly. But he was referring to Cloak, Saffa, Blue, Parker, Demos, and Phoenix,and the fact that they were no longer willing to play his game. "I can see how the diminutive woman in the cloak found them as such. She did not warn me how woefully boring they would become."

It wasn't really too much of a wonder how he got to be a dissected mass of vines sealed away in that cave considering this habit of talking to bimself. Although, one could make the argument that he was talking to the plants, who did not seem to respond or reply in any way that an average Joe would recognize.

"I admit," he continued, speaking in a low, melodious voice, "that I underestimated their modest intelligence, their irritating persistence. But they go too far. They openly defied me -- and I wouldn't mind so much, had I divined the secret mystery to these strange blue lights. These lights that protect these RAFians from me."

A thought occurred to him, but he immediately dismissed it out of hand. He shook his head vehemently at the thought, sending a flurry of leaves floating gently to the ground. "No. No, I shall accomplish this take over myself. My contemporaries need not get involved. My brethren and myself should, by all aspects, prove adequate to stomp out these RAFians, especially those rebellious six."

He placed his hand upon the eggplant pod that held Dino, which made it look rather like a shellless dinosaur egg. She was not disturbed, and was unaware that anyone was even in close proximity to her.

"I will find a way to break their resistance," Regifloras declared proudly and pridefully. "I will make these creatures mine, and dispose of their extraneous gadgets." He was obviously referring to the more mechanically-inclined RAFians, and Laserbeak. "Once I succeed with this endeavor, retaking this world would will be an easy effort."

It was at this thought, he smiled at these thoughts of grandeur and triumph. He removed his hand from Dino's eggplant pod, and continued to stroll along the pod-encapsulated RAFians.

[Cloak]

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Aimless

"And here we are," Blue said, with folded arms, standing rigidly. His tone was dripping with scornful sarcasm. "Bobbling along, beneath the beautiful briny sky."

They had been hovering in the sky for all of two hours or so. Cloak was not yet feeling true fatigue yet. But they were hovering aimlessly, without a concrete plan of action. Cloak hated not having one, when they clearly needed one.

"We were fools to think that brute force would have been sufficient," Phoenix said, dourly. His melancholic face worn and weary, head bowed, arms folded. Demos opened his mouth to speak, but Phoenix cut across him. "We cannot simply burning everything away. It could endanger the lives of the innocents that happen to be mind controlled."

"I wasn't going to say that," Demos said, with dignified tones. "What I was going to say, we cannot stay up here forever. Cloak, you are eventually gonna tire."

"I'm okay," Cloak said, with a shrug.

"For now," Parker said. "Cloak, you are not tireless, and don't say that you could keep this up forever. You can't."

Cloak said nothing. It was true, and quibbling with truth is ultimately fruitless.

"We should be focusing on our next move," Saffa said, "there has to be something we can do. Something that hasn't occured to us yet."

"As we established before, stealth is useless. The plants are everywhere. And each one a potential spy to our cause." Parker said, thoughtfully. "I can only think of one possible way, but it seems a bit extreme and potentially stupid."

"At this point and time," Cloak said slowly, his innate pacifism at war with his words, "'extreme and potentially stupid' may be necessitated. Our options are limited. The extent of what we can do is restricted."

Cloak said nothing for a bit, as he suspected Parker's idea, as Cloak himself thought of it as well. It was with a bit of hesitation, and a heavy conscience that he continued, "But we must do what we must."

"If your suggesting what I think you are . . ." Saffa said, looking down at the ever-sprawling forest below them. Cloak and Saffa wondered if Regifloras didn't have a point -- granted he blew it into a ridiculous extremes. "If it is what I think it is, then it won't be easy."

[redtailedsaffa]

I'm waiting for Blood of Olympus too. It just HAS to come out during my exams. :/

[Cloak]

I got it yesterday, and already to Chapter 17, but then my Internet went kaput. Hence why there wasn't a chapter yesterday. Since I'm borrowing my neighbor's Internet (at her own insistance, as it was her idea to begin with, since she knows how much I need to write), I'm not sure if she knows yet. She's one of those people who always seems to have something to do, rather like Shadow, now that I think of it.

I'll try to get a couple of chapters up from this computer.

New, shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
The Rachel Methodology

"Let's land now," Cloak said. "We should be in close proximity to the forum."

"How can you be sure?" Saffa asked.

"I'm not," Cloak said, earnestly. "Not a hundred percent, but I should when I touch the ground."

Once upon contact with the earth, he confirmed that they were about a quarter of a mile or so away from the forum. Even here it was heavily conquered by plants and the writhing, undulating, thorny vines. They blocked their path.

It did not matter. They were not pulling punches -- except Cloak, who never used the true extent of his potential, for fear of losing control. Saffa even went into her rarely-used Rancor morph, to rip and rend the vines.

They brutally sliced through the vines, which seemed shriek with the sound a Taxxon makes when it dies. It was a disturbing sound, Cloak found. When the stubs attempted to regenerate, Cloak cauterize the ends with tongues of flame, but then thought it too cruel, and decided to end it completely, reducing them to ash.

"I thought you were pyrophobic," Blue observed.

"Necessity and obligation forces some things to be set aside," Cloak said. "Doesn't mean I like fire anymore than I used to, but it is the only element that would be effective that's readily accessible to me right now."

"You sound like a politician," Demos said.

"You take that back!!" Cloak snarled.

"Never!" Demos smiled broadly. It was a normally disturbing thing to see, if you weren't RAFian.

The more the plants pushed them, the more these six RAFians pushed back. They weren't about to back off, not even a little. RAFians, by definition, tended to be willful. But other than Goku (who had disappeared into obscurity) and Sam, no Green Lantern ring found them. Probably because they were aware of Cloak's affliation with the group and they were still on bad terms with him.

Anyway, the RAFians came closer and closer, inch by inch, to the forum, where Regifloras dwelled. Cloak was sure that the Plant King was sure to have become aware of their rather noisy approach by now. They made no effort to hide it, as it would be pointless, because every plant was bound to tattle on them to their king.

The RAFians did not know the Plant King's reaction this peculiar methodology that they were employing. They did not know if he would greet them with passive indifference, with a towering tempter, or with an utter refusal to acknowledge their existence. But it mattered very little. The RAFians were long tired of this battle, and it was time to end it.

[redtailedsaffa]

You're reading it online?

[Cloak]

No, it's out here in America. I have a physical copy.

Anyway, I dunno when I'll get to post another chapter. The internet at my apartment is still buggy.

Internet working now.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Lord of Flora

"Honey, we're home!" Demos said, unable to stop grinning maniacally. "Where's my dinner?"

Cloak glowered at the demon. He didn't find the joke funny, but, despite himself, Demos's demonic mannerisms were surfacing. It wasn't something that would stayed buried, like Cloak with his emotions. If anyone should have known what it was like, desperately burying a facet of himself for fear of losing control overr themselves -- it was Cloak.

"How dare you," Regifloras reared up regally. It might have been intimidating to the uninitiated, but the RAFians had faced and stood up to similar figures. "How dare you take such a tone with me! How dare you speak to me without my addressing of you! How dare you come bursting into my palace without invitation!"

"So much wrong with those accusations," Phoenix said.

"This place isn't yours!" Parker protested vehemently. "It was never yours. RAF belongs to us!!"

"And before?" Regifloras said silkily. "Before your buildings were built? Before your meanless possessions were put into place?"

The RAFians did not answer, but then again Regifloras did not give them much time to so. He answered with near immediacy.

"The land before you stole away belonged to my subjects, which you cleared away and slaughtered without compunction. That you ripped and destroyed without a second thought!" he snapped. "You have not felt the pain of slain tree dismembered from its life spot, then display their mutilated corpses to build your buildings --"

"Which of these buildings are wooden?" Blue said, interrupted Regiflora's tirade.

"Don't question me, you weak last little nothing!" Regifloras shouted, sidestepping the question. "I am a king, you pathetic little peasant!

<That a self-proclaimed title, or a legitimate one?> Saffa said, still in her rancor morph.

"That . . . that's irrelevant!!"

It was hard to tell if his voice choked because he was grabbing at straws or just indigent at the merest suggestion that his title may not be legitimate. The RAFians didn't really care.

"Enough of this," Cloak said. "We all know what we're here for. Let's just stop the preliminary banter and rehashing of motivations and get at it."

[Cloak]

New book ideas.

• Book CDLXXXVIII: "A Lover's Spat" -- The RAFians get dragged into the middle of a lover's spat between two of their staunchest enemies.
• Book CDLXXXIX: "Victory!" -- Nike/Victoria runs rampant, increasing the competitiveness of everyone to ludicrous extremes, and the RAFians must stop her.
• Book CDXC: "The Serapian Staffs" -- The RAFians must destroy the Serapian staffs that are being used in gang wars.
• Book CDXCI: "The Big, Bad Wolf" -- The RAFians deal with Lycaon, who has a history with Wild.

All titles are subject to change. And I don't think I rehashed anything. Saffa?

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
A New Tactic

Five of the RAFians charged forward to attack, while only Saffa lagged behind, deciding that she needed to change morphs. She decided that a Buglizard or a Psychleopterran would be best, and the hypnotic powers of the Psychleopterran would not work, presumably, against a plants. So she morphed Buglizard.

Regifloras summoned tendril-like vines or roots from the ground. There was far too many to count. There wasn't time to anyway. A vine slammed down in front of Blue, but he wasn't there, he was standing atop it in a blink of an eye. He hadn't even unsheathed his ninjabo -- he was testing Regifloras strength and capability.

Or was he? Another vine attempted to slam down on Blue -- but he wasn't there anymore -- and Demos rendered those vines into ash before Regifloras could react. Regifloras didn't realize just what this meant, as his vine-roots just grew back, tougher and more tenacious that before. But the RAFians weren't worried, they had there plan, their tactics.

Phoenix had summoned his Sun Blade, which allowed him to both amplify his pyrokinetic abilities, focus them, and channel them through the blade. With it, he could slice through the plants and cauterize the open wounds. Sometimes, even igniting it. He whirled his Blade around with moderate skill, rather like Roy from Super Smash Bros. Melee.

Demos was throwing flame about with reckless abandon. He had to allow his more demonic nature to bubble to the surface. He was being ruthlessly pyromaniacal, his demonic nature becoming more apparent. His silk suit still remained impeccably clean and pressed, somehow, though. Though he wasn't wearing his usual fedora.

Cloak was the only one who held back. He wasn't all that comfortable using fire as an element. He always was far more comfortable with the earth element, he admitted that he favored earth over the other five elements. To Cloak's knowledge, he was the only Realm Walker Element Master known who favors one element over others. Well, to the degree he does. This could be the reason why he was the first one to be able to Earthsight.

Parker was proving that his RAFian name should have been Arsenal instead of Parker. He was using his rather handsome amount of gadgets and ordinance to demonstration kust what kind of threat he could be. He was not a RAFian to be taken lightly.

They moved so fluidly, their movements so practiced, that Regifloras tried so very hard -- but failed -- to keep track of them. All was going according to plan -- the RAFians were careful around their encapsulated fellows, and had to keep Demos from fully succumbing to his demonic instincts.

[Cloak]

Let's face it, this book'll be finished either today or tomorrow, before work. The next one will have more levity. Probably. But the series will inevitably get darker, I believe. Unless, of course, I change my mind.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Regifloras's Achilles Flower

It finally dawned on Regifloras, the one thing that he overlooked. He could only see and witness the actions of five RAFians. That couldn't have been right.

"Wait . . ." he said aloud, finally suspicious. It took him long enough. "Weren't there six of you?"

None of the five deigned to answer him. He did not like this insubordination, which was odd, seeing how the RAFians were not his subordinates. Of course, that didn't mean that Regifloras didn't see it that way.

"Stop fighting, and answer me!" Regifloras demanded, unaware of the imminent danger to himself. He was focusing entirely on the five RAFians, who did not acquiesce to his demands. Regifloras was livid with this abject refusal to comply to his wishes. "Obey me, you sacks of filth!"

Really? Did he really believe that by being that "charming" would elicit compliance? Did he, in all honesty think that by demanding something a loud and brutish way will get his wishes fulfilled? It was rather . . . cliche, when you thought about it. Regifloras so readily devolve into a stereotypical Adam West "Batman"-esque villain, when he could have been more.

"Tell me where it is! Tell me . . . and I'll spare you five. I'll allow you to live while I reclaim what these humans have stolen from me."

If you abandon something for centuries, do you really have a claim that it's still yours? Can you really, in all honesty, expect the claim to hold if you aren't around to enforce it as yours? All questions that Regifloras either never considered or tap dances around.

"Where is --"

A flash of blue. A glint of metal.

"Right here." Blue said, sheathing his ninjabo. It had appeared, at first glance, that Blue had missed. But Blue rarely, if ever, misses his target. Blue eyes narrowed as he waited. Regifloras suddenly clutched his chest, as if he was suffering cardiac arrest. But he had no heart -- no literal heart to go into cardiac arrest. A brown, withering effect raced through Regifloras, who appeared confused at first, but caught on quickly.

Especially because Demos had caught a rose that almost touched the ground.

"My heart, my power, will always bloom . . ."

"Yeah?" Demos said, the smile had left his face. He was in full control of his abilities, his demon nature suppressed. "Good luck doing that. Without this."

He burned the rose into ashes, and Regifloras began to really wither into dead brown plant matter. Within minutes, he was gone. Cloak felt conflicted though, wondering if the plan was extreme. He wondered if there wasn't a better way.

Why must everything come down to this? Why must things come down to destruction? He had his doubts and his qualms, and he would deal with then in his own time, he decided, as he watch the plants withdraw their advance as the thorny vines collapsed in to dust-like ash.

[Cloak]

New chapter. Last one of this book, and possibly a short one.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Shadow's Question

The other RAFians were revived when the plants receded back to their normal places, but it was still a mess everywhere. They all felt obligated (except Rotiart, who only felt obligated to himself) to help with the restoration of both forum and city. While the formerly-encapsulated RAFians bore only the dimmest of memories, while the citizens of the city had none, of their endurance of the Mind Vines.

"Man, I missed all the action!" Shadow said, when she came to visit and heard what happened. "Why didn't you come and get me?"

"You had school." Cloak said. "Not to mention your, like, fifteen extracurriculars."

"Oh. Right." Shadow said, abashed slightly.

Then their was a minor incident when a guy confused Faerie for a fairy, and she glowered at him so badly that the intimidated man cowered before he fled.

"Uh," Shadow said, as preamble to a question, "Why does Faerie take being called a fairy so personally?"

At this question, Cloak recalled something --

***

A chorus sang:

"Of the crankiest creatures in the wilds modt scary,
Our next RP features Faerie the fairy!"

Faerie had said, "Call me 'fairy' and you die."

"That's Fairy!"

Faerie pulled a cartoon-style bomb, rather like the Links in "Super Smash Bros." out of hammerspace, "I warned you."

***

Well, THAT was irrelevant. Cloak thought, before answering his neice. "I don't know for a fact why. I suspect that it is a curse word to her kind, but I haven't any proof. Just be on the safe side and not make the mistake."

"Oh." Shadow said. She shrugged good-naturedly, and replied, "Okay."

[Cloak]

New chapter.

BOOK LXXV:
VACATION PHOTOS
CHAPTER ONE:
R-E-C-Y-C-L-E

In the light of the whole Regifloras debacle, the RAFians decided that maybe he had one or two points, though he took it to an unnecessary extreme as all fundamentalist and extremists do.

The RAFians put together a little something of a PSA, inspired by one of the songs from the "Rocko's Modern Life" episode "Zanzibar". Underseen started the scene off.

"No, no. Down here," Underseen asked the camera man. Suddenly, words appeared on the screen, which read, "What can we do to help, RAF?"

"Well, I'm glad you asked," Underseen said, as music started up, and he sang:

"R-E-C-Y-C-L-E, recycle.
C-O-N-S-E-R-V-E, conserve.
Don't you P-O-L-L-U-T-E, pollute,
The rivers, sky, or sea,
Or else, you're gonna get what you deserve!
The ozone is in horrible condition!
From fluorocarbons in our atmosphere.
They are too small to be seen by normal vision."

In a transition that disguised the fact that Underseen and Ash deftly shapeshifted into visible, albeit talking and singjng fluorocarbons. They sang:

"But there's getting to be more of us each year!
We come from a variety of places,
Like styrofoam containers and aerosol cans!
We love to eat the ozone, it's our favorite dessert.
And, if we don't have an ozone, then the sun can really hurt!"

Esty played her part and showed how easy that the sun (or Sol, as she called it) could hurt, though she pulled her punches a bit.

Faerie sang:

"You must admit we make a lot of garbage."

Abby sung:

"This dump is filled up way above the brim."

Underseen intoned:

"If we don't make an effort to recycle . . ."

Cloaky sang ominously:

". . . Then the future could be looking mighty grim."

"Look, it's the Grim Recycler!" Saffa teased.

Cloak glowered at her as she smiled cheekily.

Underseen sang:

"Someone's cutting down the forest,
It's not enough to sit around and grieve.
if we don't protect our flora and our fauna . . ."

Yarin sang:

". . . Then we won't have the oxygen to breathe!"

RAFians breathed deeply, to emphasize this fact, then continued in chorus:

"R-E-C-Y-C-L-E, recycle!
C-O-N-S-E-R-V-E, conserve!
Don't you P-O-L-L-U-T-E, pollute,
The rivers, sky or sea,
Or else, we're gonna get what we deserve!"

The PSA ended and Rotiart could be heard audibly saying, "What a sappy song."

Not the brightest thing to say, considering both Saffa and Faerie were there and they both wanted to get back at Rotiart for pulling a Montgomery Burns and feigning death to get out of the restoration effort with the city and forum. The two ladies chased after the layabout, and the other RAFians just let them do so.

[redtailedsaffa]

I can see from the last three books that you've already gotten far ahead into Blood of Olympus. I've finished it myself. Great end.

[Cloak]

I haven't just yet. Smash has also come out.

New chapter.Sorry, it's short.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Worst Kind of Tourist*

Meanwhile, a strange spacecraft left a planet that apparently orbited Polaris. It was shaped like a wheel-less, pinkish Cadillac -- or whatever car had those garish tailfins with the spires. When it came into Earth's orbit, what could have been the spare tire, detached from the ship, revealing it to be some sort of escape pod, for perhaps a landing party.

When it entered Earth's atmosphere, it deployed its landing gear and when it landed, the top expanded, rather tent-like, as if the alien inside was camping. The opening would open like a tent, by the metal becoming flaccid and peeling away from the opening. But it currently remained shut.

The creature within was bipedal who wore clothing. He had a thick, pale blue-gray body with cartoony-thin limbs, knobby knees, and four-fingered hands (including opposable thumbs). His large head with Muppet-like eyes which sat atop his head, a large bulbous nose, and overlarge, flappy mouth. He also possessed two insect-like antennae whos function wasn't known. He wore Day-Glo orange short shorts and a dark purple shirt with short sleeves and Jetson-ridges which resembled a parka (other than the sleeves) somewhat. He was a Polarisoid, known across the galaxy to be one of the more obnoxious species, but not in an in-your-face sort of way.

But his most dangerous device he possessed was sitting on what passed for a dashboard in his ship. His camera was like a boxy eighties television camera, like the kind that April O'Neil used in the eighties show. It's purpose was similar, but not exact. But let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

He eventually stepped out into Terran air, and laughed, his voice rather high-pitched and like some old celebrity. He carried both his camera and a guidebook with him, muttering things about not drinking the H₂O, complimenting Earthlings on their pets (mistaking a bulldog as the own of an old lady), etc.

***

The sensors went off, but Rotiart was on duty and he deftly ignored it. Saffa, Faerie, Cloak, and other RAFians expressed concern at allowing Rotiart to do this, especially in light of his past indiscretions whilst on duty.

Rotiart had said that it wouldn't happened again. He obviously lied.

Although, considering that the Polarisoid did not exactly hide himself, it was a fairly obvious oversight on Rotiart's part.


* He's the guy in the middle, obviously.